Planning Commission - public_hearing

Item number four under hearing and action is council bill 2025-1545. This is a report and recommendation on council bill re-referred to planning commission after council replaced citywide inclusionary zoning with affordable housing bonus program. And this would be citywide and presenting this afternoon would be Mr. Dash.

Good afternoon commissioners, Andrew Dash, deputy director of city planning. We are here to discuss the council bill. I will give some kind of brief background and timeline as to how we've come to where we are. Then we'll talk about the various components of the bill, which include changes to allow for accessory dwelling units citywide, revisions to the city's parking code and parking minimums, and then the affordable housing bonus program. This has had its own journey, and, you know, we've been working with council person, you know, relative to what was sent to the planning commission to actually change, make some changes or make a significant amount of changes. And, you know, that's reflected in the recommendation that is in the staff report to you all. um and then we'll talk about next steps and we'll you know in in the affordable housing program or bonus program explain you know the purpose for those changes as well as how we've carried or hope we've carried over uh the council person's intent into uh the proposed changes that are in uh you know that are recommended by the staff report So as background, this all started out of work that city planning and the city had done back in 2022 with the release of the city's housing needs assessment. It made a series of recommendations around land use. It made recommendations around subsidy and tenants rights. Obviously, since we're here to talk about zoning code amendments, we are here on the land use components of that. We started community outreach on this back in 2024. Began the journey with the planning commission and at the end of 2024 in October in January had what is famously known as the marathon planning commission meeting where the package was recommended to city council. In the time after that, that was recommended by city council, you know, Councilman Wilson had then taken one piece of the bill, which was minimum lot size reform and passed that separately through city council. So that was that that occurred in March of last year. The. We had a public hearing on the bill at the time, which was accessory dwelling units, parking reform, and an expansion of mandatory inclusionary zoning in September. In October, what was referred back to the Planning Commission was an amendment by substitute where mandatory inclusionary zoning citywide was removed, and its place was an affordable housing bonus program. um as we you know in our kind of review of um you know go to the next slide first um you know again as you'll see just what has changed uh from the previous bill that the commission saw in january of 2025 is the removal of minimum lot size reform is that it was passed separately and the amendment of a citywide inclusionary mandatory program to a voluntary program. At the same time, as noted in here, the existing inclusionary zoning overlay district, which exists in the Lawrenceville neighborhoods, Bloomfield, Polish Hill, and the Oakland neighborhoods remains unchanged. So there's no proposed amendment to the ICO at this time. And so... We'll talk first about accessory dwelling units. This has remained unchanged since what the commission saw back in January of 2025. But just as a refresher, accessory dwelling units are small residential units that are subordinate to the primary use of the property. They can happen in a number of different ways. I think typically what we see, and we'll show some examples of Pittsburgh, is you see kind of garage apartments on alleys, but these can be things that also are standalone units in a yard space, they could be the conversion of a basement or attic space, or another way that there would be, again, a dwelling that would really be subordinate to that residential use. We do allow it as an accessory use to residential community center or religious assembly uses. This is because not only do we want to allow this where residents can convert a garage or create an accessory dwelling unit on their property, but at the same time, we have seen a number of uses as we've looked at best practices across the country of ways to you know, transition people into, you know, that are unhoused into tiny home projects or things like that. There's a veterans project in Harrisburg that we've referred to a number of times as one example of that, but there are a number of others, as well as there's been a large, you know, a large movement of religious institutions and being able to work in their communities to provide additional housing as we've seen a housing crunch that's occurred. So utilizing the code to allow for that, those types of conditions as well are amendments that are a part of the allowance of accessory dwelling units. We also made changes at the time, again, which have not changed, to create a maximum height that is above what we have for typical accessory structures. There was not an owner occupancy requirement. This was something that was discussed a lot when we went through public process. Reality of that is that it's really difficult for even homeowners to get financing for accessory dwelling units in cities that have owner occupancy requirements. And so even though I think, obviously the intent is, and the aspiration is something that we want, we obviously want, we value the opportunity for owner occupants to be able to provide ADUs, those restrictions that other cities have relative to that, we felt like it was not beneficial for us to do that here in Pittsburgh. If our intent is to create this as an opportunity that residents can take advantage of. We did also change and relax some of the setback requirements. As discussed two weeks ago, we did change where if A garage or an existing accessory structure is already expanded into legal setbacks that an accessory dwelling unit could be created and they could go above that structure or convert that structure without requiring a variance from the zoning board of adjustment. In addition, if they were looking to expand an accessory structure like that, instead of it being into a side or rear setback where they're kind of projecting out a little bit further, instead of that going for a variance before the zoning board would be something that could be approved as an administrator's exception. We have a lot of examples of this in Pittsburgh. I mean, really allowing for accessory dwelling units is really replicating the urban form that we have in so many of our neighborhoods, you know, that we, you know, we see this across the city, you know, whether it is, you know, primary, you know, what are primarily single family homes that have a basement unit or have another unit that's in structure, or we have, you know, these garage type, you know, structures that have accessory dwelling units as a part of them. So really, this is legalizing, I think, a lot of the things that we already allow or have here as part of the fabric of our city. One of the things that was, I think, a question that was brought by the commission at briefing around this was just looking at some of the successes otherwise and what that means as far as production. We have looked at other cities. I mean, there are some West Coast cities that are very high growth cities, you know, like places like Seattle and San Diego that, you know, are seeing, you know, roughly, you know, you know, in Seattle, I think they've made amendments to their accessory dwelling in ordinances and now are permitting, you know, close to a thousand per year. There are cities like San Diego that are doing that, that are permitting about 2,300 accessory dwelling units per year. Even in lower-growth cities, there are a lot of places that are seeing benefits through the provision of accessory dwelling units as different forms of housing or different income-producing opportunities for owner-occupants in cities like South Bend and cities like Buffalo that are more on maybe similar real estate markets to Pittsburgh. All right. So with that, that's all on accessory dwelling units. And I'm going to turn it over to Paul from the team to talk about our changes to parking.

Thanks, Andrew. Yeah, so I'll talk about the parking reform aspect of this amendment package to kind of set set the existing conditions as well documented. Most of Pittsburgh was built in the turn of the 20th century. So, by 1958, which was the 1st city zoning code that implemented. off-street parking requirements, most of the city had already been built out. It was pretty evident throughout the changes in the zoning code that have happened since that there was an acknowledgement of how these off-street parking requirements are pretty ineffective. for Pittsburgh and so we've seen incrementally over the decades changes to those parking requirements as ways to reduce those requirements just given that it just doesn't work with the built form of Pittsburgh And we've kind of been able to take this parking reform ordinance from other cities who have kind of been leaders in this aspect, most notably Buffalo and Minneapolis, which, as Andrew alluded, in the ADUs has kind of had a similar type of Real estate market built environment to to Pittsburgh as well as other southern cities, such as Austin and Raleigh, and others have implemented this to to really great effect. They were early enough on that. They've actually been quite a number of studies that have shown. the benefits to parking reform which include things such as much more walkable neighborhoods mixed-use neighborhoods with the also result of lowering housing costs and make it much easier for adaptive reuse of existing buildings that were built to allow these parking requirements that came in Uh, so what is being proposed in this package for those new members of commission removal for all uses and all zoning districts. We are also reworking the parking maximums, which I'll get to in a later slide of how those will work. implementation of a transportation demand management system for developments above a certain size threshold. Again, I'll get to that later, but essentially that is for existing large projects that go through that's already a part of the system. And we're trying to create clarity as a part of the code here. Removal of 80 parking review as that is duplicative with building code review for compliance. So it's duplicative and. You know, we're trying to reduce the number of overall reviews as a part of the development review process. um additionally there are some expansions on the limits of accessory surface parking in a very dense mixed-use area such as downtown and the riverfront districts additionally as some of you may recall from that marathon planning commission meeting we did in that version there was a essentially a gap period of when the if that ordinance was adopted by council when the tdm program would be effective given the time frame between that time period and now we've had time to kind of work with Domi on some of that implementation so we're as a part of this updated package we're removing that effective date so that if you know this package goes through by city council and signed by the mayor that this TDM package would take effect when the rest of the ordinance takes effect To clarify broadly, what does this ordinance do? It simplifies the zoning code. It also allows the market to decide how much parking is needed. Additionally, we want to remove barriers to the reuse of existing buildings. It also shifts the focus to focus on all transportation modes, not simply focusing on transportation being met by single occupancy vehicles, and also just creating a more optimal use of urban space. What this ordinance does not do, we're not removing any legally existing parking spaces. We're not intending to create greater restrictions on car parking than what already exists, and I'll get to that later. We're not looking to prohibit the building of new parking spaces or structures. Those are still permitted as they currently are. Additionally, we're not trying to create a discrepancy between what the market is providing and what the requirements limit. We did. As a part of this rewrite process, we looked at development applications that came in from a four-year period from about 2019 through 2023, and to try to do a gut check and confirm that this statement is correct here. those developments showed that we were. Additionally, we're not looking to create a parking free for all there are other limits in terms of that developers have to look at including bank financing, which may require a certain number of parking spaces to be provided for those. And there are other limitations that people you know, developers may want to provide parking as an amenity to the tenants of their buildings. So to clarify on those changes to the parking maximums, what we're really trying to do here is two things. One, to kind of create broader kind of use categories rather than having a million different things that may fall under a commercial use. We're trying to create more broad categories. And then additionally, we're trying to create the maximums to be based off of the access to transit rather than the zoning districts, because even though sometimes you may be located in a riverfront district, there are some aspects of the riverfront district that may not have as good of transit access to others. So we want to be more kind of realistic with what's on the ground, and typically that involves looking at things like transit access. um so what we're what we're showing here is really the comparison between the existing and what we're proposing to show that really we are matching largely with what um the existing in some aspects we're actually being a little bit more generous with the parking maximums to allow for actually more parking than what the some particularly in the riverfront and the mixed-use districts in oakland currently provide and and again looking at this is from prt which is their high frequency walk shed which is what we're classifying as kind of the the high frequency uh transit um so if you're within kind of these blue shaded areas where the there is good access we have a little bit more of a stringent uh parking maximum but if you're outside of outside these areas um know you're subject to that less stringent and then there is um some aspect given that this is showing a kind of a two-dimensional and we know that given the topography of pittsburgh there may be instances where technically you're in a walk shed but that transit stop is say 300 feet below you so there are sort of you know an administrative exception that can be granted to make sure that we're not catching things that make it so that, you know, the topography makes that transit stop that is technically putting you in this walk shed is inaccessible to you feasibly. But basically, the transit walk shed is a quarter mile within a bus stop that services every 15 minutes or within a half-mile stop of a fixed guideway, namely the T or the busway. um so the mobility improvement trust so this is an option for if someone wanted to exceed the parking maximum so if you if by code you were only allowed 100 parking spaces and you wanted to provide 105 spaces rather than seeking a variance you have this administrative option to be able to pay a fee set at a rate per space into the mobility improvement trust These funds would then be intended to be used by for Domi, mobility, improvement, vision, 0 projects, essentially in the neighborhood in the general vicinity of where the development is occurring. Again, this is an administrative flexibility for for projects rather than needing to go to for a variance. The current code does have this in the riverfront in Oakland. uh zoning code districts but now we want to make it so that it's included in in all zoning districts to be an option for people on the transportation demand management aspect of this ordinance so this is what transportation demand management is is this is a tool to increase the efficiency of the transportation network providing developments options to be able to meet the demand generated by their project in ways other than just single occupancy vehicle trips. So this is wanting to utilize things such as transit, biking, walking, and other efficient transportation modes. Again, as I said earlier, this is something that is already required for large scale projects. Typically, it is the result of transportation impact study. And then from there, there are TDM measurements that are essentially negotiated. And what we want to do with this TDM process is to really have those be able to be known upfront so that developers kind of have a good sense going in rather than as a result of something that comes later on in the process with the intention that this creates greater predictability by formalizing a point system that is proportionate to the development size. And we've really looked at a lot of leading cities on this, such as Minneapolis is a good example, Buffalo as well. City of Madison, Wisconsin is another one where they actually use a spreadsheet where you can put in your development, put in the project skies, and then be able to select from the menu options to be able to see how the points you're required line up with the ones that you decide to implement from that menu. With that, I'll turn it back over to Andrew.

Thank you, Paul. And the third piece in the package of amendments before the Commission today is around the affordable housing bonus. This chart was given, was shown two weeks ago. The discussion, as we discussed two weeks ago, was that in receiving the legislation back from city council and from the council person, I think there were some Some issues with the legislation as far as administration that the planning staff had some concerns on creating this affordable housing bonus program that existed citywide, except for the ICO. While we also had the performance points as a voluntary affordable housing program and then had the ICO as a mandatory program, all of which had slightly different standards. you know, was, you know, I think, you know, something that we wanted to be able to address and, you know, what we wanted to make sure that the council person's intent with the affordable housing bonus program, as it was drafted and returned to planning staff for their review, you know, was able to carry through into what we've done. And so, you know, what we've done is instead of creating a separate affordable housing bonus program that is in the code, you know, what we are using as the affordable housing bonus proposal is to use the existing performance point system and modify the performance point system, you know, to then reflect, you know, what the council persons or, you know, what was in the council bill that was returned to us. And so you'll see that as kind of the change here on system is that we are, again, trying to utilize the existing performance point system but modify the standards. There was a late change to the code that I come over to you around geography in that one of the district, our intention is that it is for all districts that allow for multi-unit and housing for the elderly. Previously in the highway commercial district, housing for the elderly is permitted, but multi-unit residential is not. We wanted to allow for that bonus to apply in the highway commercial zoning district as well. So the only change that has been made since briefing and hearing was that inclusion of the highway commercial district, which was purely an oversight as we were going through all of the districts and making the necessary change as to where the performance points would apply. The unit count and the affordability levels were proposed initially as 10% that's affordable. You'll see in the next slide as we get there that there were some changes there. Those are really to actually take some of the affordability that was in the council bill and move it and alter the performance points to reflect something similar, which is around onsite and offsite affordability. You know, as far as the affordability, that is, you know, The affordability and its applicability, that's the same. The term of affordability is 35 years in the existing inclusionary zoning overlay and in the performance points. We did carry that forward and we'll talk about that on a future slide as well. You know, the bonus is similar here. So, you know, what we did was really try to use the performance points so that the bonus that would be able to be given through the performance points would mirror what had come to us through the affordable housing bonus program. So, you know, that meeting that, you know, kind of 10% at 50% AMI, which was outlined in the affordable housing bonus program would allow for the same bonus, that additional 30 feet in height in the performance points uh one thing that is a change to the performance points that wasn't another thing that was that was in the council bill was a payment in lieu option um this was not initially in uh yes this is new to the planning commission uh from you know kind of prior iterations of this uh where there is a payment in lieu function that can offer a bonus to a residential developer um if they're providing you know that those funds in loom and the offsite requirement is similar. So, as to, again, the summary of those performance points changes, what you'll see is that the new table for the performance points looks like this, allowing that 10% onsite or 12% offsite as affordable housing bonus that would allow for two points also 30 feet in height. The payment in lieu mirrors that. And then the 20% proposal for the performance points, that is left over from the existing performance points standards. And so again, where this applies now in the RIV, in the uptown public realm and the new urban center districts, this will apply citywide for all districts that have the opportunity to do multi-unit residential or housing for the elderly. Relative to, and this came up our briefing with the commission relative to the affordability term. Like I said, the 35 year affordability term comes from the inclusion inclusionary zoning overlay as well as the performance points presently. Um, so developments that have, you know, I think we've noted that, um, that most of, you know, that many of the developments that have happened in the inclusionary zoning overlay, where it is mandatory have existed in the RIV and the urban center districts where the performance points bonus applies. So that, you know, we are seeing that, um, that recent developments that have come before the commission that have, you know, provided. required affordable housing, restricted affordable housing have happened in those locations where the performance points apply and those bonuses apply. So that would be where this affordability term exists. And really the intent here by keeping the standard the same in both the voluntary program and the mandatory program is really about long-term predictability to the largest spectrum of developers. We are looking to try to make sure that as we're applying these standards that it is consistent across those. We are trying to align with funding sources that are out there as well. As we went through the payment in lieu research, as that was part of what the council person in the various iterations of this bill had asked us to look into, most developments that are providing affordable housing even in the ico are getting some form of subsidy through programs and that is anything from you know the litec program which has a 40 40 year affordability term uh to the housing options program from phfa which has a 30-year affordability term or the rental gap programs that are offered by the housing authority or the ura the ura's program being a 40-year term and the housing authorities being a minimum of 30 that it's really you know there's a little bit fuzzier because it's dependent on hud regulations um but you know really trying to align that 35-year term with a lot of the funding that people are receiving you know to provide uh restricted affordable units in addition um you know as i had stated there was prior work you know which is the chart that's here on the screen that actually really went to try to calculate what kind of the net present value of revenue was in different affordability terms. We looked at anything from 10 years to permanent affordability. What you'll see is that the difference between a 20 and a 35 year program is roughly about a $1,350 change in in value per year. That is only if we're using the conservative approach of looking at getting rents at 50% AMI versus market rate rents. As I said, even though the housing authority is working to modify a lot of their moving to work standards, which are their voucher programs, to provide a much higher rent than 50% AMI. So if people were using vouchers or other means, it would actually shrink even that $1,350 change between the 20 and 35-year affordability periods. Um, you know, and then we also did, you know, kind of look, uh, post the briefing, uh, natural research on, you know, various components of inclusionary zoning programs, both mandatory and voluntary. And what was, what were the things that were determining factors as to how they, how production happened? Um, you know, and, you know, we obviously can afford, you know, kind of this and other research that, you know, that in that case. Affordability terms is one of the things that has the lowest correlation to whether or not affordable housing is being produced. I know that that was something that had come up from our prior discussion. I just wanted to make sure that we were able to do some additional research, that we were able to look at that more and provide that to the Commission as well. So, again, you know, looking at the research, looking at, you know, kind of, you know, the alignment with the existing programs, we do feel like and staff would recommend, you know, kind of maintaining the 35-year term of affordability for both the mandatory and the voluntary programs, which, again, are aligned. So, they're in the same section, you know, the same section of code. It's just the performance points references the ICO standards for affordability term. Additionally, there was a requirement in the affordable housing bonus program that required a look back after two years, including a report to council. Usually we don't have these things in zoning code. At the same time, there was separate legislation, I mentioned this at briefing, that was passed for city planning to produce a housing dashboard. We are currently working on the construction of that with our innovation and performance department. Um, and that's going to have all of this information real time in public. So, um, you know, housing units that are created in the pipeline, both affordable and market rate will be a part of that. Um, you know, we will, you know, obviously continue to look at best practices if, you know, we've talked to the accounts person, if there's a, if there's, if there's a uh feeling that there's a need to you know to pass uh something separately to to request city planning uh you know kind of look back at this um you know we would we would be more than you know that would be more than fine uh with us um just not maybe you know kind of having that restriction specifically in the zoning code um but you know we do feel like that housing dashboard will hopefully create a consistent place for the public, for researchers, for city staff and others to be able to access this real time information. And so, you know, so that it is something that's consistent that people can reference as a valid source of information for this work and can be able to to do this analysis in addition to city staff being able to look back at that as well, because obviously we want to make sure that things that we are implementing with you all are serving the intent and really trying to advance the intention of what we're trying to do here. So although that is not in there, it is something that we intend to do in the future. Again, I think just with changes to the affordable housing bonus program, and again, this is a prior slide, we do think that it can both reduce the time and create more predictability for projects that actually did get approved, but just ended up with a longer time for their approval process due to variance requests or special exceptions or additional process. as well as ones that were not able to be approved because a variance that they ended up requesting was kind of too far out of what was or what the initial district was, that this mechanism will allow for developments like that to provide affordable housing for a community, which I think in the specific example of the SureSave site was requested by a community in the community process, but ultimately wasn't able to be approved by the zoning board because of the magnitude of the variance that was requested. So that is the affordable housing bonus program and the changes there. So the next steps, you have the staff report before you. It is to recommend approval to city council of the package with this replacement of the affordable housing bonus program with the performance points. Um, and then obviously after that, um, this will go back to city council for a public hearing, uh, and city council will take the ultimate, you know, make the ultimate decision on that. Um, given where we are in the schedule, um, you know, likely if the planning commission is able to make a recommendation today, um, that hearing would take place and we'd be looking at probably, um, shortly after the August recess, uh, for city council to make a decision on this legislation. With that, thank you all. And here, obviously the staff is here after testimony to answer any questions the Commission has.

Thank you for the presentation. I see Councilwoman Strasburger here and would like to open the floor to her first to be able to come up and say a few things.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon again. My name, for the record, is Erica Strasburger. I sit on Pittsburgh City Council, and I appreciate your time today. Thank you for all of your time and energy as you consider Council Bill 2025-1545, the package of legislation that you just heard, which includes the Affordable Housing Bonus Program, changes to the parking minimums requirements, and a streamlined process for accessory dwelling units. I support this legislation today and I will, although I strongly support all aspects of the all kind of three parts of the bill, parking minimums and elimination of parking minimums and accessory dwelling units, I will spend the bulk of my time today discussing the affordable housing bonus program. So as you heard, I was the prime sponsor on council for the amendment to the original Bill 1545, creating this alternative to mandatory citywide inclusionary zoning. I propose this amendment because I believe, as written, mandatory inclusionary zoning, that bill was the wrong policy for this particular moment in Pittsburgh, despite public enthusiasm about it. As you know, the Affordable Housing Bonus Program is a voluntary citywide program that offers meaningful incentives to those building housing if they include affordable units in their projects or contribute to a new affordable housing payments fund. The intention of that fund, from my perspective, is to directly support deeply affordable housing projects for residents with the greatest need. That affordable housing payments fund will need to be specified through, I believe, separate legislation um that i'm interested in introducing importantly this proposal does not eliminate existing inclusionary zoning protections in neighborhoods where they already exist those remain fully intact the amendments i proposed last fall are animated by some very basic principles one that more housing is not only good but necessary particularly for pittsburgh at our current juncture Two, building new housing is extremely expensive and often challenging to finance, construct and operate. Three, policies like inclusionary zoning can add to a city's affordable housing stock on the margins, but unless they're paired with sufficient benefits to offset the financial shortfalls created by the rent-restricted units, they will depress overall housing construction without meaningfully delivering affordable units to people who need them. And four, the best inclusionary housing policies recognize the economic realities of residential development and the local rental market and incorporate flexibility so that a program provides the greatest support for affordability initiatives. I also wanted to say, I've said this before, I'll say it again here, that affordable housing is far broader than how many units in a brand new apartment building are reserved for lower income residents. Affordable housing also means home ownership opportunities. It means rental options at all price points in all kinds of structures across all 90 neighborhoods. It means the ability to both obtain a housing choice voucher and successfully use it to secure a living space, something that desperately needs to be fixed as part of a separate process. Affordable housing also means strategically using the city's and URA's funding to support large scale LIHTC projects that are nearly impossible to cobble together. and identifying creative solutions to fully fund our land bank and turn vacant abandoned lots into homes. In short, there's no single solution to housing affordability, but this is one of them. It's my sincere hope that this legislation moves forward through the Planning Commission today and through City Council in the weeks to come. and I guess in the months to come, paired with a number of current and future policies and programs, we will have the opportunity to assess the success of this bill in a few years' time and adjust it as needed to maximize affordability for the greatest number of current and future residents citywide. As you heard today, those actions include the housing dashboard, which was originally proposed by Councilperson Bob Sharland and now is being worked on by city planning staff and IMP staff, which will provide the public with real-time data about new housing that's built in the city. Mayor O'Connor's work to reform and streamline permitting in the city to make it easier and more desirable to build here. The potential of a 20-year LERTA tax abatement citywide, thanks to the work last year of Senator Wayne Fontana, which could be used to provide gap financing for even broader and deeper affordability statewide. citywide, excuse me, and eventual changes to the housing authority of the city of Pittsburgh that expand opportunities for voucher holders. I understand also that you have before you today additional amendments proposed by city planning staff that will help this bonus point program better conform to existing performance points programs. I know you have given those further amendments your time and attention over the last few weeks and will make the best decision on the details based on the merits of the issue and the information that you have received. I would like to thank you all for your time and attention to all the matters before you today, and I look forward to our continued collaboration as we work toward building a housing strategy that works citywide. Thank you again so very much.

Thank you, Councilwoman, and thank you for rolling up your sleeves and sponsoring. All right, at this time, we open the floor for public testimony. I'll get online first. Are there hands raised online?

uh oh yep uh dave uh brennigan uh you can unmute yourself you have three minutes to provide your testimony thank you good afternoon my name is dave bring it i'm the co-director of lawrenceville together which is the newly unified organization of lawrenceville united and lawrenceville corporation and our mission is to excuse me build opportunity and community for all who live and work in lawrenceville Overall, we're in support of this package, but I did want to make just a couple comments on the affordable housing bonus program. Overall, what city planning presented for this legislation is significantly improved from the original legislation that was introduced by Councilmember Strasburger. So we're highly supportive of these changes. I'm not going to go into detail, but there was a lot of problems with that original legislation. um i know there was some talk from some planning commission members during the briefing about reducing the affordability term and i want to strongly encourage the planning commission against reducing it from 35 years 35 years is already extremely modest by national standards The minimum requirement for LIHTC projects in Pennsylvania is 40 years, and anyone who has been around knows that the expiration of affordability requirements from LIHTC creates a lot of challenges for communities and our public agencies in terms of preserving affordable housing and protecting against mass displacements. So increasingly, the national best practice has been to try to move toward permanent affordability tenures. So again, 35 years is already watered down. I understand the concern that a longer affordability period may unintentionally discourage some developers from opting into mixed income housing and create less affordable housing. But this concern is not supported by the research and evidence on the subject, as Assistant Director Dash pointed out. And just to put a finer point on it, I refer you to that study that Mr. Dash uh referenced which is by far the largest scale empirical examination of iz outcomes across the entire united states and the district of columbia that study used regression models to look at which inclusionary housing policy characteristics were associated with higher or lower housing production and i found that longer affordability terms were not associated with lower affordable unit and I'll just quote directly from the paper, quote, in all regression models, we found that having longer affordability terms did not affect affordable housing productivity. On the contrary, we observed a trend that the higher the level of affordability, affordable unit productivity, the higher the share of IZ policies with 50 or more years of affordability requirements. This empirical evidence counters the notion that longer affordability terms would deter new development and result in fewer affordable units, end quote. So again, I strongly encourage the Planning Commission not to water down the affordability term because it will create a lot less affordability down the road without any compensation in additional units in the short term. Finally, I do want to point out one piece of the affordable housing bonus program that does need modification, which is the payment in lieu fee. And lieu fees are, in my view, bad to begin with because they really counteract the whole benefit of programs like this, which is to promote affordable housing specifically in neighborhoods where there's high demand and in high opportunity neighborhoods. Our status quo in Pittsburgh is that just 12 neighborhoods contain over half of Pittsburgh's total affordable housing stock, while half of the city's wealthier residential neighborhoods contain less than 10% of the city's total affordable housing stock. But since in lieu is included, we should at bare minimum get the metric right. $25 per square foot is way off. It's not supported by the city or the URA's own data on that, which puts it at $35 a square foot. Because it's so low, this will strongly disincentivize developers from creating mixed income projects. And it's likely to exacerbate our current issue where affordable housing is concentrated in certain neighborhoods and higher income neighborhoods provide basically very few housing opportunities for low income households. So I would honestly encourage planning commissions and negatively recommend payment in lieu provision overall, but at bare minimum, recommend fixing the metric to match the city's own data on this. So that will actually create a one-to-one replacement for the affordable units that will be provided on site.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brangham, for your testimony. Do we have other hands raised?

Andrea Boykowitz, you can now unmute yourself.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Andrea Boykowicz. I live in central Oakland, and I'm the executive director of Oakland Planning and Development Corporation. OPDC has submitted testimony in the past regarding our enthusiastic support for the removal of parking minimums and our more measured support for permitting accessory dwelling units in all residential zones citywide. I'm offering remarks here in support of city planning's proposed revisions to the affordable housing component package of this package of measures meant to help implement the recommendations of the city's most recent housing needs assessment such a long preamble um the affordable housing bonus points which are currently available in the riv in lawrenceville and in the ucmu uce and rmu zones in oakland are an effective are an effective tool to incentivize the creation of more affordable housing in high-rise multi-family developments and they should be available city-wide the affordability period of 35 years is essential to the success of the bonus point bonus height incentive and we support dcp's recommendation that the Commission keep that period. Regarding the proposed $25 per square foot payment in lieu, it's been our experience and the experience of our colleagues and partners in the affordable housing development space that this amount is too low. $35, just as Dave said, just as Deputy Director Dash said, is near the mark. The point of the height bonus incentive is to support private developers choices to deliver a public benefit in the form of new affordable units. That benefit is moot if the amount of the supports provided through payment in lieu is too small to actually result in any new housing. In addition, I'd recommend to the city that these payments in lieu be paid into the existing Housing Opportunity Fund. I mean, if you're going to keep the payments in lieu in general, they should go into the HOF rather than creating a separate fund. The HOF is able to respond to evolving needs and market circumstances to deliver the kind of assistance including emergency rental help home repair down payment assistance and crucial support for developers of affordable housing to make these important projects possible until City Council can agree that inclusionary zoning should be extended to the whole city offering bonus high pipe bonus height for affordability is a very reasonable place to start so thank you thank you Miss boykowitz for your testimony do we have additional

Mark Noble, you can now unmute yourself. You have three minutes.

Hello? You may need to unmute.

There I am. Can you hear me?

We can hear you now, Mr. Noble. Okay.

My name is Mark Nobile, a member of the board of Polish Hill Civic Association. One of our concerns is that these this package as a whole makes single family houses more affordable to or more attractive to corporate buyers because they can break them up easier with no parking requirements and no restrictions on Airbnb. They can be multiple Airbnbs, they could be little hotels. In our very residential neighborhoods, we don't think of this as a positive thing. We think this is taking viable housing for young families off the market and driving up the value and price of housing. So we would have to oppose the ADU portion of this package unless it is restricted to owner occupants. I think that is the key of what I have to say. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Mr. Nebel, for your testimony.

Marcia, you can now unmute yourself.

Thank you. Yes, my name is Marcia Bandes, M-A-R-C-I-A, last name Bandes, B-A-N-D-E-S. I'm the chair for the Pittsburgh Proceed Off, which is a women's rights organization. And I want to thank you for having this meeting. I think Dave Brannigan gave a lot of the background that I would have wanted to say, so I'm going to comment on a few other things. The first one is going to be to increase the payment in lieu fund. amount from $25 per square foot to 35 square feet to align with the city's own research on what it costs to build affordable housing. With funding at $25 per square foot, either fewer units will be able to be built or smaller units, one to two bedrooms, not family size. More families will be priced out of Pittsburgh, more schools closed, and we talk about food deserts. How about school and education deserts as the number of schools in Pittsburgh shrink and the distance between them becomes longer? I noticed also that Councilwoman Eric Strasburger commented that this in lieu fund would help address deeply affordable housing. And a couple of sentences later, she said, building housing is extremely expensive. So I think her comments actually support our need to have the in lieu fund being at least $35 per unit. I recommend that we start with a $35 square to enable adequate funding for new units and that the inclusionary zone bill also incorporate a clause that ties the average cost of building affordable housing to inflation. Every two to three years, the cost should be reviewed and updated. And then in support of my request, I just want to mention the May 2025 special HACP report by the Office of the City Controller. On page 42 of that report, it states that in 2006, there were 9,354 family units. By 2022, there were only 5,999 units. That is a 35% point nine percent drop. It's clear we're going in the wrong direction and cannot afford to make it any less prohibitive to build affordable housing. The second item I'd like to talk about is I want to highlight that to reduce affordability window to 20 years rather than the more reasonable 35 years. And it looks like the Planning Commission is leaning in this direction as well. And I won't repeat what others have said except to point out that 20 years is actually cruel. 20 years is not very long for a family. Families with children build strong communities with other parents for backup support and shared family events, even now to find doctors and dentists, et cetera. In 20 years, growing families may still have children in school. Now we want the rent to shoot up to market value. What happens to the community, the children moving to other schools, access to their doctors and dentists?

Or you're at three minutes.

Okay. Thank you very much.

I appreciate your time. Thank you, Ms. Bandy's for your testimony.

Do we have additional, uh, Rhonda Strozier? Uh, you can now unmute yourself.

Hi commissioners. I am Rhonda Schroeder, the executive director of fine view and Perry hilltop citizens council and member of the housing justice table coalition. Um, thank you for. promoting this bill today. Specifically, we want to support the accessory dwelling units, as well as the parking mandates. We also want to just highlight that in the Perry Hilltop and Fine View neighborhoods, our median income is still extremely, extremely low, anywhere from 45 to 60,000 for our families. And so affordable housing and of course this inclusionary zoning is extremely important to us. We want to echo Dave's sentiments and Marsha's as well about putting the funds into the Housing Opportunity Fund if possible. I understand that that might come in later legislation, but that is something that we have seen be successful and really help the families, especially in our communities. We also want to reiterate the importance of not just having the $25 per square feet, but $35 per square feet as well. That is all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Trezier, for your testimony. We have additional?

That was the last hand.

Okay. Thank you so much. Is there anybody here in the room? Please come on up.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thanks for your time today. My name is Maddie McGrady. I'm a renter in Highland Park and a co-chair of the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table. We're a coalition of organizations and advocates that actually formed to create the Housing Opportunity Fund, and we are still working together to bring healthy, affordable, accessible housing within reach to all residents in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County as a human right. We support the ADUs and eliminating parking minimums. Obviously, we were big supporters of citywide mandatory inclusionary zoning, which was removed from this package last year. Regarding the affordable housing bonus program, we are supportive of city planning's proposed amendment by substitution with two comments. that others have touched on. First of all, we would like to see the payment in lieu be increased from $25 per square foot to $35 per square foot to align with city planning's research and what it actually costs to build affordable units. If we're serious about building the deeply affordable housing that residents of this city desperately need, we need to be serious about paying for it. Raising the payment in lieu fee is a reasonable and meaningful step that we can take to invest in the future of affordability in this city. secondly we strongly support city planning's recommendation to maintain the affordability period for 35 years which is also in alignment with affordability periods in similar programs across the country this program offers incentives to developers in exchange for affordability so as a public benefit so we need to be getting what we need out of this deal which is that units are truly affordable to the low-income residents who need them the most Study after study have shown that low income residents are the most housing cost burden, paying 50 to over 100 percent of their income on housing alone at the expense of meeting other basic needs. To reduce the term from 35 years is to erode the public benefit of the program for the residents who need it the most, and that is unacceptable. This commission and our elected officials have a responsibility to do everything in your power to meet the housing needs of our most vulnerable residents, including seniors, people with disabilities and working families. We need long-term affordability, at least 35 years, but ideally longer. And we'd like for you to increase the payment in LUFI to actually fund development of more deeply affordable housing, especially permanently affordable public and social housing. I think that could be through the Housing Opportunity Fund. I think that could be through a separate fund for social housing, which was discussed last year. But it should definitely go toward funding deeply affordable housing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Ms. McGrady for your testimony. Anybody, please come on.

Good afternoon members of the Planning Commission. My name is Colleen Cadman and I'm here on behalf of AARP Pennsylvania and our 1.8 million members in Pennsylvania, including nearly 80,000 Pittsburgh residents age 50 and older. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering people to choose how they live as they age. Our advocacy is grounded in housing affordability, mobility, and the ability to age in place. Older residents consistently tell us they want to remain in their homes and communities as they age. And in fact, 75% of Americans age 50 and over want to stay in their homes long term. At the same time, many are caregivers or expect to be at some point. Many provide care at home and one in four older homeowners would consider creating an accessory dwelling unit or ADU to meet their family's or housing needs. In Pittsburgh, support for ADUs is even stronger, with 80% of Pittsburgh voters age 50 and over favoring making it easier to create ADUs. AARP supports expanding ADUs as a flexible neighborhood scale housing option. ADUs help older homeowners remain in their homes, provide supplemental income, support multi-generational and caregiver living arrangements, and increase housing supply without changing neighborhood character. We also support maintaining clear standards such as size limits, long-term residential use, and owner occupancy to ensure compatibility within existing neighborhoods. AARP also supports eliminating minimum off-street parking requirements as they have been shown to increase development costs, limit the feasibility of small-scale housing including ADUs, and do not reflect the needs of many older adults who may drive less or not at all. Allowing parking decisions to be based on actual demand and site context supports more efficient land use and improves housing feasibility. As you consider this change, we encourage flexibility for units housing older adults or individuals with mobility challenges who may require a designated parking space. When taken together, ADU expansion and parking reform remove structural barriers to housing choice, support walkable age-friendly neighborhoods, and align with Pittsburgh's goals for housing affordability and access to transportation. AARP Pennsylvania respectfully supports these zoning reforms and encourages the Planning Commission to advance this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cadman, for your testimony. Are there any others? Missing anybody? All right. Doesn't look like so. So again, I'd like to now turn to Commission again, first recognizing and thanking Councilwoman Strasburger for sponsoring this bill. Thank you to those who came out for public testimony online and in person. Commission, at this time, I'm going to turn it over for any discussion.

as it relates to the bill being proposed uh keep in mind this is a recommendation uh to council and and we're not voting on it here today okay all right any questions comments i have a few comments so uh first of all as this uh commissioner batts um yeah i wanted to start off by thanking uh council person strassberger um councilman gross council person charlin council person wilson who are all co-sponsors on this legislation and also um deputy director dash zoning administrator rostow and everybody else from the department who has spent countless hours over now several years working on this it's a really important legislation and uh you know i think uh there's a lot of a lot to be proud of in the process that we've gone through on this but what i wanted to focus on really is the trade-offs that we see in this zoning legislation and really in all zoning legislation um you know i think that sometimes there's an urge that we all have to pick all of the good outcomes and say, we want to achieve all of those all at once. But it's not always realistic when you look at zoning like this. So when we look at parking reform, for example, if you include more parking, It means that you're spending more money building parking. You're creating higher costs, and you're likely creating less housing. If you have lower heights, you're going to build fewer homes. And I think the same can be said about stricter affordability mandates. And so this idea that we can take a voluntary program, increase the affordability mandate that was passed by council from 20 years to 35 years, and still achieve the same outcomes, is not realistic um you know i think all of us have the goal here and we all agree on the goal of building more affordable housing we want more affordable housing in pittsburgh But the key point that we need to focus on is creating a program that actually produces homes, that actually produces affordability. And I think it's important to look at what the Affordable Housing Bonus Program is not. It is not a public subsidy program. It is not a program that is committing more public dollars to building these affordable homes. So we need to rely upon the incentives that we're offering to get home builders to participate in these programs. I think it's also worth noting that the 20-year term was not something that was chosen haphazardly. It was something that was determined and voted on by a majority of the members of council. It was determined over a many months long process of public engagement, discussions with community groups. And I think that when it was advanced to the planning commission, when five members of council voted for it, it was with the assumption that's what it was going to be. And that's not to say that we as the commission need to rubber stamp everything that comes over from council. But I do think that we should acknowledge the process that was gone through. 20 years is a meaningful affordability commitment. And it's a commitment that's being made voluntarily by home builders under this program. If we increase that affordability commitment to 35 years from 20 years, which was passed by council through robust public process, we risk nobody taking advantage of it. We risk a situation where we pass a program that produces no affordable homes because the term that we've set up is too long and is unrealistic and does not pencil so you know i think that it's really important when we look at this program that we whatever we pass back to council we pass something that we believe is realistic and something that we believe will produce actual abundant affordable housing making the term stricter will not do that thank you

Thank you, Commissioner Vatz. If I might hear just for some clarification to address what Commissioner Vatz is talking about, I just want to get a little bit of clarity. The 20 year, 30 year, can you break that down a little bit more deeply for us here, what that means, what that might not mean just so that we can wrap our arms around the time difference, the 15 year difference here?

Sure. The affordability term is in the code as the length of time that once a housing unit that is an inclusionary unit, as per the code, is built. It's the length of time that it is required to be affordable to someone of the required income. So 50% for a rental unit, 80% for a for sale unit. And so that happens. And typically, we're talking about the rental unit side of that as opposed to the ownership side. I mean, the ownership side is usually handled through other mechanisms like a community land trust, which does protect affordability somewhat differently. um you know with uh the rental units again you know it is it is a part of the the monitoring that we do um you know annually um you know with all of the inclusionary units that we already have and would do similarly with uh units that would come through ultimately what's recommend recommended and eventually passed by city council um you know here and so um you know existing in the code in both the the mandatory program that we have of the ICO, as well as the performance points. The system, which is in the code, because the performance points references the ICO standards, they have essentially a number of the same standards that are requirements. That one standard that has an affordability term of 35 years presently operates where it is the affordability term for both the voluntary and the mandatory programs. Because of the transition of going from a kind of third affordable housing bonus system to really trying to incorporate the standards from the council person's bill into the code. since the since the performance points you know system already references that it was you know i mean we were keeping what was existing in the performance point system by doing that as you know and so you know that is that 35 year term as i had stated on the slide i mean there were you know we we went back and looked at this um the director had conversations with uh developers you know kind of in the interim period between the briefing and hearing as well as the research that myself and that staff had done you know on either previous work that the department done or best practice and again you know it was our recommendation you know to to you all uh to to keep the the standards and the code you know as as it is um you know i think if that answers your question so i'm going to go through this just just for me real quick so the 20-year is still an option and is still out there right

uh the 20 you know the the you know what's for units that are receiving maybe uh lie tech or something like that they're still 20-year 20 years still out there.

Accurate? Not for LIHTC projects. LIHTC projects are a minimum of 40 years, but if someone was utilizing the LERDA, for example, so the downtown LERDA is maybe an example where the LERDA in that case is a 20-year LERDA for downtown. It's 10 years in you know, in the majority of the city. But, you know, that tax abatement is a different term, you know, that they get that tax abatement. And so, you know, and, you know, the ones that are where the LERDA is tied to affordability, the affordability term is the same as the amount of time that they're getting the tax abatement.

And I misspoke. I said the wrong thing. But the 35-year is something that, you know, the developer could participate in or not, correct?

As far as the affordability? I mean, yes, however, the bonuses are kind of predicated on the 35-year affordability.

Understood. Just want to wrap my arms around for some clarification, because I just want to make sure that as we're having the discussion with 20 versus 35, that we're Go ahead.

Well, and I'm sorry, just to clarify. So the bill that was sent over by council had a 20-year affordability period for the voluntary program that was arrived upon by members of council through a eight-month-long public process. Just to kind of summarize what is being proposed by the department is that they changed that 20-year period to 35 years instead. My concern with that is that it's a voluntary program. The stricter you make it, the fewer participants you'll get. And so we want the program to be effective and successful which means we want a lot of home builders to participate in it and so that like to me that's kind of the summary here is that there was a change made by the department it was made to allow it to align with the existing performance points program although there's no reason why the performance point couldn't just specify for the voluntary zone it's 20 years for the mandatory zone it's 35 years

Okay, very good.

Maybe to clarify, when this came before the Planning Commission in January of 2025, the proposal at that time was to actually amend the affordability term from 35 years to the life of the building. And that was for both the performance points and the ico um that went to city council you know that was that was the proposal that went to that went that was recommended from the planning commission that went to city council and that was in until the amendments that were made um you know by the council person by council as a body um you know that would you know in october that were returned uh you know to the commission that's where the 20 years was introduced yeah and i mean and

Deputy Director Dash, I think that's an important distinction though. So the elected representatives of the citizens of the city made a determination that 20 years was the appropriate affordability term for the voluntary program. So whatever planning commission recommended back in January was superseded by the work and public engagement that council did over that time. that's what we're that's what we are now ruling on today is what council brought back to us not what was approved back in january of yeah i'm i'm only giving a history of where the discussion on the affordability term you know on the on the affordability term was uh commissioner um don't want to over speak commissioner vats commissioner i'm done okay

I'd like to quickly touch on why I also see the expansion of the length of the program from 20 to 35 years as being a material change and ultimately a change that will hinder the program's success. You know, like Commissioner Vatz and likely others on the Planning Commission, I'm defining success here as multiple development firms opting into this program in projects across multiple neighborhoods in the city and ultimately delivering a significant number of affordable apartment homes at this 50% AMI level. I'd like to, at a high level, You know what? Walk through why the the change from 20 to 35 years is significant. It really comes down to the maximum extended Lerta in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. You're tapping out at 20 years, so in an affordable housing unit at 50% AMI of monthly rents averaging about $1100 per month or worth approximately $150,000 per unit. The cost of construction. within the city for mid-rise apartments is approximately 350,000 per unit. And high-rise steel and concrete buildings cost over $400,000 per unit. And so how do you get these projects financed with a $200,000 per unit delta? It's again, going back to the LERTA. And so whether it's in year one or year 21, the LERDA must offset that diminution in value. And so, you know, therefore, you know, again, you know, Go back to this increase in years from 20 to 35 years is ultimately something that sounds good on paper, but won't result in the apartments that the commission and ultimately the city is looking for.

Yeah.

Erica Connolly- Okay, Commissioner o'neill yeah um Thank you um yeah this is, this is a really interesting discussion and something i've been looking at, and I apologize for missing the last meeting, because I was out of town. Erica Connolly- I think i'm just trying to wrap my head around this in terms of the zoning code. and how it's administered. So I appreciate that there's been a lot of public process regarding the number of years and the length, but I don't think it's done. That's kind of why we're here and there will be another council hearing. There'll be a lot more discussion. But what Mr. Dash and then Mr. Brenigan cited was an empirical study that the length of time doesn't necessarily result in the risk that we're hearing about. um you know there there is empirical evidence we have had developers in the city adopt the 35-year standard and been been going through that and just for context you know the other bonus points that are currently in the zoning code um are based on permanent improvements to the buildings so we're seeing you know to get the same thing to get One point or more, which is 15 feet. You know, we're seeing 0 energy or 0 carbon buildings being built. We're seeing onsite energy generation, substantial reuse of buildings, adding riverfront, public access, trails, easements, amenities. So, for example, we've seen a lot of bathrooms. And then kind of rainwater. These are, you know, costs that are attributed to the project. There's something that developers bear. And that's kind of what we're asking for here. And so the LERDA that's in place and incentivizes affordable housing doesn't go away. That incentive remains. what we're kind of looking for is that exceptional additional 15 years and when you're doing that you're getting a minimum of two bonus points or 30 feet you could be getting more than that that's an additional two floors that the developer wouldn't otherwise be able to build which helps to kind of pencil that project moving forward um And I think that kind of aspirational, maybe that's the wrong word, because I think there is the empirical evidence there that the 35 years is appropriate. And I also do want to give some credit, too, to city planning. Administering these programs is difficult, and having conflicting or potentially conflicting you know, provisions related to different numbers of years and having different standards when all of the other bonus points are permanent standards that are, you know, going to be in place for the life of the building, which useful life could be 50 to 100 more. Or typically, if we're thinking about it from a depreciation standpoint, it'd be 39 years under the IRS code. You know, making this different than those just makes it very difficult. And we want it to be administered. We want it to move forward. So I think for the people who are on the ground to say that it's easier to have 35 years, um is appropriate and i i did also want to touch on the amount of the b and lu um and then just like a very legal perspective having any number in there is probably a little problematic It really should be, you know, a fee to be determined by either the zoning administrator or council and then published in a fee schedule each year. That way there is some sort of, you know, adjustment for inflation, some sort of increase. it is as we all know and why this is here a long process to come through zoning amendment to maybe change it to 30 years and 10 years from now right or 30 um so i would recommend that's kind of similar to some of the other fee and lou language that we see in the zoning code i would say um to be determined by either a zoning administrator or council. And I'd be interested in the law department's take on the amount, just because we want that to be enforceable as well. If it's too high, and I understand $35 a square foot sounds like a good number, but if it is too high, it can be considered an illegal tax and unenforceable. so i i would really like that kind of placeholder for an amount to be determined and then council can adjust that yearly and then the law department can also weigh in on what is an appropriate amount and what is too high i would agree with that um and i think that completes my comments

Thank you. You're welcome. You can go for it. You can go back. All right.

Thank you. 2 thoughts. 1st, I completely agree with commissioner O'Neill's idea of both the payment in lieu of in regards to the affordable units, but also in regards to the parking. Remember, that's the other 1 that we should also be. I am. I'm really concerned about legislating numbers, right? Legislating numbers that things over time change, especially dollars is really uncomfortable for me. So I really appreciate the idea and the suggestion to do and I would advocate that we do both the parking and payment in lieu of parking and payment in lieu of units or for square feet, both be done through the fee schedule that can be amended annually. That way we can factor into inflation and things like that throughout. I also, frankly, am a little nervous about the idea of putting numbers in regards to years in the zoning code. So whether it's 20 years, 35 years, 135 years, what happens when a developer all of a sudden says, no, I'm not going to do any more affordable units? Are we going to take those floors back? we don't have that kind of regulatory power right to take the floors back and so i'm a little concerned about this notion of putting that of how do we enforce that right of how i did there isn't really a good way to do that i guess i'm maybe interested in council's position and probably ultimately city solicitor's position about how can that be enforced if it can be at all and if we're going to put that in there what is the way to make sure that it's the what's But they're not, it's the right number. I think that's open to debate amongst here. But for me, it's something that should never be in there at all.

Commissioner Rupp, I think just as clarification, I believe that it's enforced through a deed restriction on the building before it gets its occupancy permit.

Again, I get that. But having enforced zoning law for many years, if somebody changes that, is the city going to go out there and change that deed restriction, right? Is that going to challenge that? Question. that that's the enforceability is the component of to me to that that's problematic that's our question yeah yeah and i i look i think this is a great piece of legislation i think i commend council for doing this the idea of one eliminating parking requirements is is lots of other cities are doing it we could be doing we should be moving in that way the the accessible the additional accessory units is a really great idea to be a great one for my when my mother-in-law comes moving in so i do think that but i i think the affordability bonus program is the right way to be doing it i'm just concerned in both both frankly for the iz overlay and for this this idea of putting a year of restriction on there that is somewhat arbitrary but also going to be really hard to enforce

Do you want to comment to that?

I mean, I just may kind of limit my comments to the enforceability aspect of, you know, of this. And, you know, this is, I mean, this is, you know, as Commissioner Vatz had noted, you know, there is one side of this that is, you know, there is a deed restriction, you know, that is required at the time of, you know, prior to certificate of occupancy that does, you know, create that restriction as something that's enforceable. um there are also restrictions in the performance points around uh a number of these relative to um you know how you know enforcement and if it comes to it which obviously is not our intent uh you know fining and you know and those things those things occur you know on the back end for non-compliance um you know are specific because similar to um the you know kind of amorphous nature of you know of you know of i mean somebody could say i don't want to rent you know i don't want to make this an affordable unit anymore what do you do then the same as separate performance points that we have around energy or around you know around other things uh you know relative to building systems you know that there is you know i think you know obviously ways that building owners could make changes to come out of compliance and some of those ways that are very different than traditional zoning standards of you know yes you're building a setback or no you're not right you know or you know yes you know the use is very clearly one that identifies with the zoning code or doesn't so we do have mechanisms in the code to you know to get on the enforcement side you know relative to that you know whether you know whether that is like i said some of the other things that we have around um you know around um you know, energy production or energy generation or, you know, energy, you know, provided in, you know, just harping in that one is kind of like what I see as a similar example to restrictions that maybe already are in the ICO that get into either term of affordability or some of the, you know, things that happen internal to the units, you know, that are standards that exist in the present ICO and performance points relative to affordable units. if that helps to maybe provide some clarity and answer your question there.

I mean, it does, and I appreciate the notion. I also know that there's a lot of other things in the zoning code that are out there that aren't as enforced as well. So I worry about enforcement has always been the hardest part. There's no zoning cops, right? And maybe there should be, but I'm sure there's a long line of applicants for that. But that being said, I think that's where my nervousness is. I mean, I think what we as a commission need to find out is what is the balance between wanting to give as much carrot as possible out there to encourage the development to happen, but also making sure that we're retaining the rights of the city if it does not. And I think that's so, I mean, I'm inclined to think about, again, I'd be interested in where the solicitor's position is, and frankly, where council is on that as well. Maybe one last piece. on this is that if we just as a note for protocol i guess as we're going through this if there is a decision that we want to change the any of these numbers specifically i'm thinking the one that i think we're all in favor of this idea of putting the payment in lieu of on the fee schedule as uh for both parking and and for the um affordability that would i would suggest that we do that through a separate motion that's done before we act on the further the bigger pieces i that's just a suggestion that i put out there

So you want to separately vote on payment in lieu and that number being adjusted?

If we approve as it is, then we're getting what it is. If we want to amend it, do we need to vote to amend it and then vote to accept it?

No, I think we would just vote with conditions.

Yeah, we could approve with some conditions instead of separating.

Yeah. And, and it, I mean, it sounds like the, the conditions that are being discussed right now are, I think the payment, so it would be the payment in lieu fee being something that is either determined separately via legislation or via determination by the zoning administrator and published in a fee schedule. Right. And then also reverting the, uh, affordability period to, for the voluntary program only for 20 to 20 years.

uh I think Commissioner Walker had something she wanted very very very brief comments um I I will say that I'm not wholly convinced that the 34-year affordability will be a deterrent to developers I think that some of the first movers on this particular bonus program will be our existing affordable housing developers and so we also have an imperative to make affordable housing development easier for them while also trying to incentivize some of our more market rate developers to take advantage of this program. I think that the legislation has done a great job of pairing significant density increases parking reductions fee waivers and other tax incentives that are contemplated by the lerda and one thing that we've not talked about are faster entitlement timelines i think we talk about affordable housing but what we're fundamentally dealing with is the need for subsidized housing and so by creating this bonus program we're asking market rate developers to essentially help subsidize affordable housing i think we should you know not only think about in terms of affordability the term of affordability from 20 to 35 years but how do we start to address some of our the subsidy tools that can be used to further enhance this bonus program i come from a world where 40 years of affordability in a 99 year d restriction It's not an uncommon thing. It's just what you do. I also come from a world where I've seen people get to the end of a LIHTC term and have their housing affordability gutted from them, and that was a 40-year term of affordability. So I think we have an imperative here, a moral imperative, an economic imperative, and sort of a fiduciary imperative to not only think about affordability in terms of getting people to buy into the program, but we have to think down the line, how do we put mechanisms in place between that 20 to 35 year period? How do we prepare people for that cliff? That's not been contemplated, that's not been talked about, but it's a very real thing in our city. And so I am in support of the 35 years because I think we have to start somewhere. And I think that the hard work that's gone into the legislation and reframing what was a citywide inclusionary program and people had major concerns, I think that this is a strong showing of how we make affordability. We show that affordability is important. We do not alienate the developer community, but at the same time, we have a responsibility to residents to give them longer terms of affordability. And so I'm in support of the 35 years.

all right uh commissioner o'neill oh i was just gonna piggyback off of uh commissioner rappy's i think because there may not be alignment on the amendments it's first taking a vote on amending based on the fee and then a seg and then a separate vote on the number of years and then once we've done those votes it's voting on the final legislation so uh you want to take apart

The fund?

Yeah, so I think the first, so it would be the first motion would be that the payment provisions in the legislation are changed to reflect a to be determined amount by either the zoning administrator or council and included in a published fee schedule. Okay. And then a second amendment and I will let Commissioner Vatz propose his amendment. Just the language what it would be when we're not officially proposing it. No, no, no.

I'm just I'm well, I mean, I just think that. That we go with what was passed by council, which is 20 years because we want to make the program something that developers will actually use.

Can I make a suggestion there? Yes, please. I think if I'm hearing Commissioner Vatt's intent correctly, that he would be asking for a condition to amend what planning has offered by substitution by creating an additional provision to allow for the voluntary program to have a 20-year affordability term. Because again, since those were aligned, there's not, you know, and the reason I make that clarification is just because of the way that what is, where it's transitioned from what was submitted initially as the separate affordable housing bonus program to integrating the accounts person's intent into the performance points. If that, you know, just to try to like, you know, if that gets at your intent.

Yeah, no, I think that's accurate. so you're that's what you feel yeah i mean i think that like what you said sounds like what my intent is i feel like yeah i mean like i don't know i don't see it i think we're in alignment yeah yeah all right that sounds like you yeah now commissioner kelly please and thank you this year i just have a quick question do we have the right to override the will of council

don't i don't think i don't use something i i i don't know that's all i was asking so i i would say that i don't think what we're in mr dash wants to to clarify please i'm confused on this sure so um you know i mean so when when when council bills come to us um you know it's it's for the planning commission to review and make a recommendation The Planning Commission can either approve what City Council has submitted as it was, can reject it or can recommend rejecting it outright, or can recommend approving with conditions. Again, in this case, case, you know, planning staff's recommendation, and again, this is off of work that we've done, you know, with, you know, the council person to recommend a different direction, you know, was to make some of these changes to the performance points to relate to her intent. um and so if the planning commission wants to make additional edits which i think is what the discussion on the table is that there might be additional conditions then what happens is those go to city council with the planning commission's recommendation planning staff most times tries to work with city council to edit the bill to conform to the conditions at the same time it is council's will to through a super majority uh vote against the planning commission's recommendations so you know like so you know with you know then you know when it comes to council a simple majority is what they was required for them to um you know to if they're gonna comply with your recommendation it takes a super majority if they would say well you made these conditions and we disagree we're not going to do them

so does that help answer your question commissioner kelly trying to get the yep it's just little that this whole loop's been a little confusing to me on this one here go ahead and go ahead and totally understand i'm trying and so what commissioner vats is proposing around that is that we look at the 20-year which council has proposed then the additional condition on the table is that we uh vote separately on the in lieu fund okay um so commissioners we've had some discussion uh and it is has been very healthy discussion understanding i think that we are unanimous in taking a two-part vote so since that is the one thing right yeah yeah okay yeah all right i just want to make sure uh that we go ahead and someone make a motion and i don't want to put the motion in your mouth as it relates to the in lieu right i'd be happy to make that motion please and thank you

I make a motion that the Planning Commission add a condition that both the payment in lieu of for parking as well as payment in lieu for affordable units be not put, not be legislated in the code in regards to those dollar amounts, but rather be designed and accepted annually as part of the fee schedule determined by the zoning administrator with the council.

I'll second. do you second all right um so i'll take that um commissioner burton falk i commissioner hunt all right thank you commissioner interiano hi thank you commissioner kelly hi thank you commissioner o'neill hi thank you commissioner quentinia all right thank you commissioner repi hi thank you commissioner vats hi thank you and commissioner walker hi all right very good did you have something it was on the motion you just made so i think we're oh sorry okay well you should have jumped out there a little bit okay i'm trying to catch the whole line up here okay so for um the recommended motion and the other portion we've heard commissioner vats we've heard commissioner walker um other commissioners on it as well is there

So I'll make a motion that we approve with the condition that the affordability period for the voluntary program only, not for the mandatory program, only for the voluntary program, is set to 20 years. So, yeah.

And then the voluntary... voluntary is 20 years and then the mandatory program stays unchanged okay very good well second you'll second hunt um all right very good so now i'll do And this would be a recommendation to council.

Just voting on the condition? Just for the condition.

We'll do the condition.

And then do the vote. Got it. Thanks for clarification.

Well, I'm trying to take the vote here so that we can get to the recommendation. Because we got a whole lot of conditions. Okay. Burton Falk, aye. Hunt, aye. Thank you. Interiano, aye. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly, aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill, nay. nay uh commissioner quentinia aye uh commissioner repi thank you thank you uh commissioner vats hi thank you and commissioner walker nay nay all right very good all right so now we've got two parts in terms of condition now what we're doing is a recommendation to council with these conditions to approve Right. We're not approving. We're making now your hand is up and I can see that.

Just to clarify, Chair, is that a recommendation in accordance with the staff report with the additional conditions that were voted on? Because the recommendation of the staff report was kind of the changes that were presented to you all and the revised legislation that was submitted to you all then with the two conditions that you've already voted on.

Let's just make sure. Let's go down the line.

I believe so, yes.

Okay.

I feel like that's what we've just talked through here is there's two additional conditions that we want to apply. Beyond that, I think we agree with the staff.

Yeah, I just want to clarify on the recommendation to approve because approve would have been the initial affordable housing bonus bill. That was why I was adding that from the staff report into the conditions that y'all made.

that's fine I just want to make sure that I'm not speaking for the entire commission I I what you're saying is that like it seemed and I'll just throw this out there it seems like the motion is to approve the staff's recommendation with the two additional conditions that we just agreed upon that's correct okay yeah I think am I saying that correctly for everybody everybody's interviews everybody feeling that Sorry, there's a lot of moving. Yeah, that's the motion. That's the motion.

And I second that. Okay. All right. So life is getting better here. Commissioner Burton-Falk? Aye. Commissioner Hunt? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Interiano? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Kelly? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Quintanilla? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Repi? Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Vatz? Aye. Thank you. And Commissioner Walker? Aye. Thank you. Okay. all right so um there you have it uh and um thank you for all those who have gone through this process with us that concludes uh the hearing and action items